We’re accustomed to the discourse of democracy with the primaries, but the truth is that this really isn’t popular democracy. They are party contests that have acquired a patina of democracy, in that they are competitive elections. But they do not, in any way, shape, or form, represent the “will of the people.” It’s a haphazard system that has two aims: produce a nominee, and grant the nominee the illusion of democratic legitimacy. Having a candidate that appears to be affirmed by a popular vote offers us the image of a popular process, and that was the goal: to prevent a situation where a candidate without a popular endorsement can be the nominee. But a process where 7 percent of the voting population, state-to-state, can select the nominee is barely democratic.
Now, make no mistake: whether this process should be more democratic is a worthy question for debate. But right now, the process only looks democratic. And yet people are accustomed to seeing it as a popular process; 58 percent of Republicans think that the nominee should be the delegate leader, even if he doesn’t have a majority.
Source: The Republican Nomination and the Language of Popular Democracy – Ordinary Times
